A feature article in The Bulletin (14/12/99) made the following points:
" …. Of the 70 boats that have arrived illegally this year, 47 carried people from countries where the ruling regime is known by Australia to torture, persecute or murder its citizens - countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan …. In this era of the dispossessed, when as the UNHCR estimates no less than 13 million people are on the move at one time, refugees choose us. Queue-jumping, backdoor arrivals - it's all the same. People are seeking homes in countries like Australia, Canada, the United States and in Europe …. Of the 14 boatloads that arrived in November, most have been chased out of their native Iraq for political or ethnic reasons: most of them come to Australia via Iran - where they fled from Iraq but are now being forced out of as relations between these two countries thaw ….. only 8257 people sought asylum in 1998-99 … while 51,795 went to Britain, 986,444 fled to Germany and 427,135 sought refuge in the United States …."
Comparisons between Australia and northern hemisphere countries are invidious. We have no way of knowing how many have escaped detection. Far more worrying is the fact that Australia's soft policies are providing no deterrent for a rapid escalation in the boat trade.
With Port Headland, Curtin and Woomera full and overflowing, the Immigration Department's budget is $150 million over spent, simply because of illegal immigrants. Each person in one of the detention centres is costing $115 a day.
The latest development is disastrous. Queensland's Courier-Mail (28/12/99) wrote:
"The Federal Government's decision to grant three-year "protection" visas to boat people and send them to cities other than Sydney and Melbourne is a bid to cut the cost of illegal immigration …. For each person assessed as a refugee and released on a three-year protection visa, the Government saves $115 a day …. Most of those granted the special visas will probably stay in Australia for ever. The refugees know it, so do the people smugglers. For that reason the move will do little to stem the tide of boat people heading this way. On the contrary, it will probably give boat people and those who arrange their transport new incentive to press ahead ….
The article went on to point out that, while these new arrangements for illegal immigrants would not provide enhanced social security benefits, they would receive the Special Benefit (or dole equivalent) and access to Medicare. The Government will provide them with a special bus ticket to Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth, fondly hoping they will not move from those destinations to Sydney or Melbourne!
This policy is sheer lunacy, guaranteed to ensure a continuing escalation of illegal immigrants. What is the point of beefed-up surveillance to our north if the most that happens is an escort to an Australian harbour and a bus ticket to a smaller capital city for a three-year stay? We might as well import red carpets from Iraq or Afghanistan to lay out for illegal immigrants!
The Australian (7/1/2000) reported the arrival of the first group to be released under the new arrangements in Perth:
" …. Instead of being pleased with their release from detention, the 31 Afghans and seven Iraqis railed against the Federal Government's new restrictive policy on illegal immigrants …."
Australia is now caught on the horns of its own pathetically unrealistic small-l liberalism and so called humanitarianism. Persisted with, this policy simply gathers fuel for a subsequent fire of reaction from ordinary Australians who are being pummelled enough as it is.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan are currently subject to international economic sanctions, largely at the instigation of the United States. The humanitarian results in Iraq are horrifying, with up to one million dead women and children since Desert Storm.
Australia should immediately withdraw its support for such sanctions. The illegal immigrants reaching our shores are largely the result of inhuman policies against the countries from which they come.
In 1998-99 Australia granted $120 million in aid to Indonesia and a further $55 million to China. Such aid should immediately be suspended until the countries in question show they have ceased to participate in people smuggling.
The Bulletin article referred to explained: " …. Mostly they fly from Jordan to Jakarta where Arab-speaking people-smugglers wait at the airport to persuade them they can get them safely into Australia. The fact that these people are getting visas to transit through Indonesia is causing much chagrin in Australian immigration circles, with the strong suggestion that the Indonesian government is facilitating the arrivals as a payback to Australia for its role in East Timor …."
And we still dish out aid to friend and unfriendly alike as though Australia was Father Christmas.
The illegal immigration racket is set to be one of the most explosive issues as the new century begins. It will be a test of the Australian character - with little evidence of the necessary qualities in the present Federal Government!